moonlog

Biking directions added to Google Maps

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:23:16 -0500

Whenever I meet someone who finds out that I work on the directions team for Google Maps, the first question I’m asked is often “So when’s Google Maps going to add biking directions?” We’re big…

Americans actually shared the road 100 years ago. Market Street,...

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:05:00 -0500

Americans actually shared the road 100 years ago. Market Street, San Francisco in 1905. Via GGW.

Is this even a surprise? North Korean computers run Linux!

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:15:13 -0500

Is this even a surprise? North Korean computers run Linux!

Times have changed. When I was a kid, GMU was kinda a safety...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:52:53 -0500

Times have changed. When I was a kid, GMU was kinda a safety school.

Rice Bowl Primer

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:01:00 -0500

You’d be hard pressed to find a standard Korean restaurant that doesn’t serve the humble bowl of rice known as bibimbap (pronounced “bee beam bahp”). For those of you who haven’t discovered what is probably Korea’s most accessible and a favorite lunchtime export, it’s time to get with the program.

Bibimbap is a bowl of rice with fixings, served with a vinegared chili sauce and a side of soup. The most common toppings are spinach, bean sprouts, gosari (a fernlike vegetable), carrot, cucumber, mushroom, zucchini, and egg. Just about anything can make it into a bowl of bibimbap, and each ingredient is prepared in its own way. Toppings can include meat or seafood.

The meal comes in two vessels, either just a normal bowl or a heavy stone bowl called dolsot. Dolsot bowls keep the meal warm through the entire experience and cost a bit more, whereas regular bowls work better when you’d rather not bathe in the ambient heat of your meal. Some restaurants serve one or the other, many have both.

Bibimbap arrives at your table as a colorful presentation of vegetables and rice, but user intervention is required. A good server can guide you through the process, but if you want to come to the table like an expert, know that bibim means “mix” and bap means “rice.” So dribble the chili sauce into the bowl as you mix the rest of the ingredients with the rice till you get an even consistency.

Some tips:

The chili sauce is spicy, so dribble it in according to your spice tolerance. There’s no harm in adding just a little, mixing, tasting, and then adding more. (I gracelessly dump as much in as possible.) If the sauce is altogether too spicy for you, request a dipping sauce for pajeon (“pah juhn”), which can work as a nonspicy substitute (but frankly, you’ll be missing out).
If you order dolsot bibimbap, check with your server about the egg. Koreans traditionally break a raw egg into a dolsot upon serving and let the heated stone bowl and other sizzling ingredients cook the egg as you mix it in. This doesn’t work so well if you’re slow with the mixing spoon or squeamish about undercooked eggs. Many restaurants simply fry the egg.
Use chopsticks to nibble on side dishes, but know that Koreans generally use a spoon to eat rice dishes.
Regular bibimbap is vegetarian friendly as long as you instruct the server to hold any meat trimmings and skip the egg. But strict vegetarians should know that many Korean ingredients and side dishes, including most kimchis, are made with anchovy-based broths.

Bibimbap is virtually a Korean national dish, almost universal in appeal and ubiquitous on restaurant menus, so your favorite or most convenient Korean restaurant can probably get you mixing. If you’re already a bibimbap veteran and want to give the bowl a different spin, here’s a few suggestions.

Meat or seafood lover’s bibimbap. Many restaurants serve bibimbap (usually in dolsot) topped with extra portions of meat or seafood. Bulgogi and galbi (marinated beef and short ribs) are popular, but I prefer calamari or nakji (miniature octopus).
Bibimbap variants. There are some other rice bowls that aren’t technically bibimbap, but they operate in more or less the same way. Hoedeopbap (“hweh duhp bahp”) is basically bibimbap’s cousin with sashimi (raw sliced fish) on a bed of lettuce. A lot of the classic Korean veggies are absent from this bowl, but the chili sauce is a tell-tale sign that this in indeed a very Korean food. Albap (“ahl bahp”) is another veggie rice combo topped with caviar.
Bibim noodles. Bibimbap is the quintessential rice bowl, but noodles are just as susceptible to the spicy chili sauce. Bibim naengmyeon (“bee beam nehng myuhn”) is a bowl of buckwheat noodles served icy in a vinegary chili sauce. Bibim guksu (“bee beam gook soo”) is a dish of wheat noodles served cold and flavored with chili sauce. But noodles should get their own primer.
Last but not least, Jeonju bibimbap. Jeonju, a city in southwestern Korea is Mecca for mixed rice and veggie bowls. If you see this on the menu, take it to mean “extra fancy” and be ready to register a complaint if it isn’t.

Basic bibimbap in the D.C. area generally starts around $8 on lunch menus but prices can go as high as $16 for dolsot versions outside lunch hours. More exotic ingredients nudge the price higher.

So no more menu ignorance. No more excuses. No more creepy ads in the Times. Go forth with spoon in hand and mix.

I stumbled on a blog that claims that a Korean reality show...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:00:00 -0500

I stumbled on a blog that claims that a Korean reality show (~~embedded above~~) is responsible for that odd full-page ad for bibimbap in The New York Times some time ago. (So, it was disabled, but basically it was two eccentric Korean guys walking around Manhattan asking anyone who would talk to them if they knew anything about Korean food.) All I gotta say is that Korean reality shows are really weird and the copy on that expensive ad is hilariously bad.

But the real victim in all this strange humor and awkward English is the food. It’s really a shame that mainstream America doesn’t know Korean food but loves just about every other “Asian” food. I could go on about this, but instead I’ll just say Korean food doesn’t pull punches and Americans generally have wimpy tastebuds that gravitate to the “Asian food for White People” category. [Cue hatemail.]

If the entire world knows what a hamburger is, there’s no excuse for at least America to know what bibimbap is. And yes, kimchi comes on the side. So without further ado…

Birds and Bees and 1040EZs

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:36:10 -0500

This may be Too Much Information, but I feel like I’m fishing for dates to go with and do our taxes together with accountant volunteers at the library.

Yes, I have not done my tax yet. Let’s go together! When would you like to go? Let me know, I want to go with you.

Saturday morning, 10am. Queue the porno music. Federal and state, baby.

Grandma uses Twitter via fax machine. This is probably the only...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:59:03 -0500

Grandma uses Twitter via fax machine. This is probably the only way my father would use email, except someone would have to program the fax machine to auto-dial.

Photo

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:29:00 -0500

THIS JUST IN. VIRGINIA IS A NANNY STATE. The liberals are trying...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:17:00 -0500

THIS JUST IN. VIRGINIA IS A NANNY STATE. The liberals are trying to enforce their environmental values on the rest of us. THANK GOD their cronyism with the cotton/cloth bag industry failed in committee.

As if a plastic/paper grocery bag surcharge weren’t bad enough, your radar detectors continue to be illegal here, and the Commonwealth (along with the adjacent District of Columbia) is the only state in the freedom-loving union to infringe on a driver’s inalienable right to speed when cops are around.

dongsa.net

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:57:32 -0500

dongsa.net:

Awesome Korean verb conjugator.

ericaaaaa: Of Montreal - Tim I Wish You Were Born A Girl I...

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:34:25 -0500

ericaaaaa:

Of Montreal - Tim I Wish You Were Born A Girl

I could catch your cold and you could take care of me

Why Hootsuite Doesn't Re-Tweat the "New" Way

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:08:53 -0500

The company says they’re working on it:

The reason we haven’t yet included Twitter RTs is because we’re working out good intuitive ways to integrate with this feature.

We also know that a lot of people like the “old style” manual RTs because they allow users to add commentary to someone else’s tweet.

We’re looking at ways to do both, possibly a “RT” button and a “quote” button… but having multiple options may also be confusing to users.

I’m not confused! Quote and retweet button. I GET IT.

RSS Summary versus Full Text

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:36:18 -0500

Dear Not-for-Profit/Advocacy Blog Admin and others like you,

Please don’t set your feed to “summary only” unless you have a really good reason. Commercial sites obviously do this because they want the click-through ad revenue. If you’re trying to network with other activists, like-minded people, or even just people technically literate enough to how to use an RSS reader, you’re sorta being annoying.

Of course you want people to come to your actual website at some point, but throwing out teaser summaries and not freely syndicating your content makes your blog harder to follow. A larger readership is probably better in the long run than a few more click-throughs to your actual website. And if your content is compelling enough (which it should be!), people HAVE to click through in order to comment and interact anyway.

If you have a message you’re trying to get out there, it’s better to conveniently put that message in front of people, rather than try to lure them to you. Push is better than pull!

Sincerely,

A Reader

"We had the weather of Buffalo with the snowplowing capability of Miami."

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:39:35 -0500

“We had the weather of Buffalo with the snowplowing capability of Miami.”

- Chris Matthews (of MSNBC), complaining about D.C.’s handling of the snow storm. Via GGW.

Photo

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:06:09 -0500

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Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:07 -0500

Better transit design through slime mold?

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:38:03 -0500

Better transit design through slime mold?

Snowball fighting in Washington, 1925. Via GGW.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:35:37 -0500

Snowball fighting in Washington, 1925. Via GGW.

Photo

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:35:09 -0500